Wrapping one hand halfway around my neck, he presses his icy thumb into the hollow at the base of my throat. I want to run but fear paralyzes me. And something else, too. Fascination.

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Blog Post #4 … It’s Killing Me

Usually the realization that it’s Saturday morning fills me with joy. I roll over and go back to sleep for another half hour. I make a pot of coffee and an extra piece of toast. I play Words With Friends in one of the ongoing games I struggle through with a friend who always beats me. But it’s a huge thrill when I actually win one against her because it’s only about five percent of the time. The rarity of my victories makes them all the sweeter. Also on Saturdays, I write. If my husband tries to talk to me I put in my earbuds and I visit another world. A world I love where everything’s less stressful because it’s not real. I made it up.

Except now this world is real to me. And, more important, the people are real to me, too. They’re no longer characters. They’re walking, talking, kissing, running, breathing, fighting, struggling human beings. And the best ones deserve to win their battles. I finished the first two books in the series. The first one comes out this August. I sent the second one in to my publisher a couple of weeks ago. I’m working on the third. Hence, the stress. It’s killing me.

I don’t have writer’s block. I know where the book is going. I’m about 3,000 words in and feeling pumped to write the next 70,000. The research will be fascinating: Native North American legends, spirits and lore; falconry and fencing. An epic battle of Good versus Evil, as every third book in a series should be. The characters from books one and two are all in their places, like chess pieces arranged on the board. The new characters are about to enter the story. A mixed bag of quirky and romantic, fascinating and unpredictable people. There’s only one giant, elephant-in-the-room type quandary.

This is the third book, and, even if I never become a Suzanne Collins or a Veronica Roth, someone has to die. Someone important. Someone I love. I’m not anywhere near writing the pages where this character breathes his (or her) last. But the stress, the anxiety, is killing me. I haven’t even decided who, yet. But I promise it will never be the dog. I’m thinking of putting all of their names in a hat and just picking one. Then whacking him, as the mob says. Or her. I might have to sacrifice more than one person. HELP!

I saw an online joke where a bunch of famous authors are playing cards and the loser has to kill off a character, chosen by the winner. But I’m not a famous author and I don’t play cards with any famous authors. Probably because I don’t know any. Oh, wait… T. Jefferson Parker once commented on something I posted on his Facebook page. I don’t think that counts as a friendship, though, and I don’t think there are any card games in our future. I don’t even play cards, not since Crazy Eights, with my kids when they were little. I do like cards, however, and if card games didn’t involve staying up way too late, I probably would play. But I’m digressing, because I don’t even like writing about the possibility of killing someone I love, never mind actually wielding the knife, or the gun, or concocting the freakish accident.

So instead of deciding who to kill off, right now, I’m going to do something I’m really good at…procrastinate. I’ll do some research, write a few thousand more words and worry about death another day. Ugh. Damn. This could ruin my whole summer.